This exploratory project focused on the need to increase the resilience and robustness of, and to achieve water equity for, vulnerable, poor communities in an uncertain future. The high natural climatic variability in arid and semi-arid southern Africa means that policies and strategies developed to increase the resilience and robustness of social-ecological systems in the face of climate change in the medium to longer term are likely to be immediately relevant in the face of the natural variability. This will give governments the opportunity to finetune their policies and strategies aimed at adaptation to future climate change.